As the February days wore away, Douglas became less hopeful of peaceable adjustment through compromise.  If he had counted upon large concessions from Seward, he was disappointed.  If he had entertained hopes of the Peace Conference, he had also erred grievously.  He became more and more assured that the forces making against peace were from the North as well as the South.  He told the Senate on February 21st, that there was “a deliberate plot to break up this Union under pretense of preserving it."[936] Privately he feared the influence of some of Mr. Lincoln’s advisers, who were hostile to Seward.  “What the Blairs really want,” he said hotly to a friend, “is a civil war."[937] With many another well-wisher he deplored the secret entrance of Mr. Lincoln into the capital.  It seemed to him both weak and undignified, when the situation called for a conciliatory, but firm, front.[938]

With an absence of personal pique which did him credit, he determined to take the first opportunity to warn Mr. Lincoln of the dangers of his position.  Douglas knew Lincoln far better than the average Washington politician.  To an acquaintance who lamented the apparent weakness of the President-elect, Douglas said emphatically, “No, he is not that, Sir; but he is eminently a man of the atmosphere which surrounds him.  He has not yet got out of Springfield, Sir....  He he does not know that he is President-elect of the United States, Sir, he does not see that the shadow he casts is any bigger now than it was last year.  It will not take him long to find it out when he has got established in the White House."[939]

The ready tact of Mrs. Douglas admirably seconded the initiative of her husband.  She was among the first to call upon Mrs. Lincoln, thereby setting the example for the ladies of the opposition.[940] A little incident, to be sure; but in critical hours, the warp and woof of history is made up of just such little acts of thoughtful courtesy.  Washington society understood and appreciated the gracious spirit of Adele Cutts Douglas; and even the New York press commented upon the incident with satisfaction.

That Seward and his friends were no less alarmed than Douglas, at the prospect of Lincoln’s falling under the influence of the coercionists, is a matter of record.[941] There were, indeed, two factions contending for mastery over the incoming administration.  So far as an outsider could do so, Douglas was willing to lend himself to the schemes of the Seward faction, for in so doing he was obviously promoting the cause of peace.[942] Three days after Lincoln’s arrival Douglas called upon him; and on the following evening (February 27th) he sought another private interview.[943] They had long known each other; and politics aside, Lincoln entertained a high opinion of Douglas’s fairmindedness and common sense.[944] They talked earnestly about the Peace Conference and the efforts of extremists in Congress to make it abortive.[945] Each knew the other to be a genuine lover of the Union.  Upon this common basis of sentiment they could converse without reservations.